Don't Look Now

Don't look now, but American forces and the Iraqi government are quietly winning the war in Iraq.

News coverage of the Democratic primary and beginning of the presidential general election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain has dominated the airwaves and newspapers in recent weeks. Very little has been heard about Iraq during the entire month of May.

Turns out May 2008 might have been the most important month in the entire war, the turning point when American and Iraqi allies solidified their advantage and definitively started winning the war.

Even the Washington Post is astonished at the progress that has been made since April:

While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now."

There's even more good news. U.S. forces suffered the fewest casualties in May since 2003 -- there were only 19 American fatalities in the entire month of May. For a comparison, that's an 86% drop compared to the 126 American forces who were killed in May 2007. Attacks on coalition and Iraqi forces are down dramatically.



What does this mean? Iraqi forces -- finally -- are actually beginning to take the lead on multiple fronts in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. This was unthinkable as recently as last summer. Iraqi forces are also intercepting Iranian Quds Forces members attempting to infiltrate southern Iraq.

So how did all this start? The Washington Post explains:

Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained "special groups" that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans.

This dramatic improvement means Gen. Petraeus has said he will probably recommend an additional reduction in U.S. forces this fall beyond the five "surge" brigades that were already scheduled to return home.

But does this mean any political progress is being made? Despite the claims of critics, the answer is "yes." The Iraqi parliament has passed numerous groundbreaking pieces of legislation covering many key areas of national reconciliation. The government of Nouri al-Maliki, once weak and lacking the trust of the Iraqi people, now enjoys "unprecedented" levels of public support. This is in no small part due to the impressive growth and successes of the Iraqi government and security forces in taking control of the country.

Even the French have come around.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday that the security situation in Iraq was improving and reaffirmed France's willingness to help rebuild the war-ravaged country.

"I have the feeling that things are better. Statistics show a drop in security incidents," Kouchner told AFP after a working lunch with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari on the last day of his two-day visit to Iraq.

There is "an improvement in the situation in Iraq," he said.

Kouchner also voiced satisfaction at efforts by the Iraqis to take charge of their own country, saying they were making "progress."

Yet despite the consistent and dramatic improvement in Iraq in the past 10 months, Barack Obama continues to cling to the same outdated assessment and position he took two years ago. He refuses to take into account any of the dramatically new realities on the ground in Iraq. Obama's website still contains this pronouncement about the surge:

The Surge: The goal of the surge was to create space for Iraq's political leaders to reach an agreement to end Iraq's civil war. At great cost, our troops have helped reduce violence in some areas of Iraq, but even those reductions do not get us below the unsustainable levels of violence of mid-2006. Moreover, Iraq's political leaders have made no progress in resolving the political differences at the heart of their civil war.

That paragraph is completely disconnected from reality. Obama shrugs off any reduction in violence and improvement in security as inconsequential and minimal and continues to deny that Iraq's political leaders have made any progress. He does not even mention the dramatic successes and improvements in the status and performance of the Iraqi Security Forces.

Perhaps worst of all, Obama's Iraq policy is still based on the now-obsolete assessment he made in 2006 that America is losing badly in Iraq and that Iraq is a "lost cause" that we should abandon as soon as possible. Perhaps, as John McCain pointed out, if Obama had bothered to visit Iraq or talk with U.S. military commanders on the ground there in the past two years, he might see the situation differently.

The Washington Post offered this advice to Obama:

[T]he likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable; Iraq's 2009 elections will be crucial. It also should mean providing enough troops and air power to continue backing up Iraqi army operations such as those in Basra and Sadr City. When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success.

Commentator Andrew Sullivan, a longtime, die-hard supporter of Barack Obama, offers his candidate this warning:

The trap Obama must not be caught in is one of excessive pessimism. Conditions now favor expeditious withdrawal more than they did only a few months ago. But the manner of withdrawal, its pace, and its concomitant diplomacy now require a different cast, and may require an even different one next February and March. None of this means that this war was not a mistake; it does suggest it need not in the medium term be a catastrophe. Petraeus deserves the lion’s share of the credit; luck and time and the self-defeating nihilism of the Jihadists have helped. But Bush and McCain equally merit points for pursuing the surge, even though the metrics pointed to failure. Obama needs to capitalize on these gains, not dismiss them.

But therein lies Obama's dilemma: it's a huge risk to go to Iraq, or to adjust his assessment to take into account the improved situation. The reason: John McCain has him cornered.

The problem for Obama is that it is hard to see how he can go to Iraq without acknowledging that the surge has succeeded, violence has been reduced, and the Iraqis are making considerable political progress. If he goes to Iraq, he has to meet with generals, soldiers and Marines, and they will tell him these things. But if Obama admits that we are succeeding in Iraq, he is admitting that John McCain was right all along. He can't do that.

For a candidate who attacks the Bush administration for having been "inflexible," "unwilling to admit error" and "divorced from reality," that sure is a rough spot to be in.